When we look more closely at the
actual buildings for which the Kashan potters were making their
tiles, some very interesting issues are raised. Firstly, there is
a very strong funerary association with lustre decoration: of the
21 securely recorded buildings from which the tiles come, 18 are
tombs, 2 are mosques, and 1 is a shrine. The shrine (of Imam Ali
in Kashan; see the interesting story about its foundation, below)
acted as a tomb in that it became a place of veneration and
pilgrimage, and the mosque of Ali in Quhrud bears inscriptions
that show it was also regarded as a commemmorative building as
well as mosque. Thus the overwhelming majority of the buildings
known to have been decorated with lustre tile from Kashan had
funerary functions.

Furthermore, in Qom, Mashhad,
Baku, and Natanz, the tomb-chambers are decorated with lustre
tiles, but not the contemporary mosques; the 4 mihrabs whose
provenance is unknown, can be identified through their
inscriptions as tombstones.

Not only are buildings funerary in
function, but all except for two are Shii: the other two
(in Baku and Sarvistan) are tombs of Sufi masters who are known
to have been sympathetic to the Shiis. This Islamic sect
was persecuted under the Saljuqs who were strong Sunni Muslims,
but as we have seen in the historical introduction the Il-Khanids
were more tolerant: Oljaytü converted to Shiism in 1310,
in acknowledgement of the growing importance of this religious
movement. Thus the Shiis in the early C14th, which is the
same time when the Kashan tilework industry was taking off, were
able to consolidate their position in society and existed as
substantial minorities in many towns.

Qom, Najaf, and Mashhad were the
most imortant shrines, controlled by highly trained clergy, and
Qom (where there was a shrine of Fatima, the sister of Imam Reza)
was also the centre of Shii theological studies; Jurjan,
Kashan and Veramin are all known to have been strong Shii
centres; the tombs at Damghan and on Kharg island are for
descendants of Shii Imams, and at Natanz an inscription on
the tomb façade gives the Shii creed "Ali is Wali
of Allah"; a number of tiles of unrecorded provenance also
bear same creed. Only Baku, Sarvistan and Yazd are not known to
have been Shii, but as mentioned above the Sufis tombs here
are of mystics who held Shii sympathies.

Thus there seems to be a
specificity about the function of lustre tile decoration which
links it exclusively to a funerary context, which is furthermore
exclusively Shii. Yet another interesting issue is raised
by the iconography of the tiles. As we have seen, there is a
predominance of secular inscriptions on these tiles, such as
Persian quatrains and lines from epic verses which seemingly have
no connection to the subjects depicted on the tile. Tiles with
this kind of inscription, along with "secular" figural
decorations, occur in religious buildings. They are found in Qom,
Baku, Kashan, Quhrud, Damghan, and Kharg; in the latter two, only
secular tiles are found.

Can we find, then, a religious
interpretation for these "secular" tiles? This type of
study has been done on some of the Kashani vessels, most notably
by Ettinghausen and Guest (1961): the dish by Shams al-Din
al-Hasani had previously been thought to represent the Persian
hero Khusrau first spying his beloved Shirin while she bathed.
Their re-evaluation of the iconography concluded that this dish
may represent a Sufi metaphor: the fish, symbolising the mystic
or prophet, in water which stands for the infinite Divine Grace
(that thirst which can never be quenched) together represent the
union of the mystic with God; the woman in the water is the
earthly manifestation of Divine Beauty, which the seated youth
contemplates in his mystic sleep of quest, while rejecting all
earthly attachments, represented by the horse and attendants.

The Sufi connection can be pursued
on the tiles also, and we have seen above that two of the tombs
to be so specifically decorated with lustre tiles are those of
Sufi masters known to have Shii sympathies. This is not
unusual for at this period the mystic Sufi movement was gaining
adherents, and they were adopting many Shii beliefs (see
the historical introduction on the early Saljuq period). To the
mystics, allegory was the most important way in which they
communicated to their disciples the relationship of the mystic
with God: in particular, they used the allegory of human love and
drunkenness to symbolise divine love and spiritual intoxication;
separation from or ill-treatment by the beloved, which as we have
seen was a predominant theme on the quatrains of Kashan tiles and
dishes, symbolised the mystics separation from God; lastly,
animal stories were used to convey moral tales.

Perhaps we can now see that the
inscriptions which surround most products of the Kashan potteries
were actually not totally unrelated to their iconographic
subjects, but were instead suggesting a deeper mystical
interpretation, which fits well with the religious situation of
the period and the region. It must be remembered, however, that
the presence of Takht-i Sulaiman in the archaeological record
tells us that without doubt these tiles were used in secular
contexts also, and in form are indistinguishable from religious
tiles. This is a specific commission from an Il-Khanid ruler,
however, who cannot be expected to view the religious iconography
of the Kashan lustre tiles in the same way as the Shii
potters and patrons of the tombs and mosques.

We may briefly consider questions
of distribution, looking at Kashan pots in a wider Shii
context. One reason why there was so much confusion about the
place of production of these ceramics is that they have been
found in so many places, especially in and around Iran, but also
further afield. Egypt? Where else? What can we draw from this
pattern? Shii sympathies or just trade?

As we know, many of the tiles are
individually dated as well as signed: this attention to dating is
unusual on tiles which are not foundation tiles. In fact many of
them, and especially the early ones, are dated to the month
Muharram. The dating can be quite specific: one potter takes the
trouble to mention that he completed his pot/tile during the
night between the  and  of - . It could be that the
presence of dating in a seemingly arbitrary manner is merely a
device to fill left-over space in the design. However, the end of
Muharram is an important time for the Shiis, when they
recall the battle of Karbala and the death of Ali (??!) with
feasts and recitations. If many of the tiles that the Kashan
potters produced were intended for Shii funerary buildings,
perhaps it was seen as appropriate to dedicate a suitably sacred
part of the year to their production. Many of the tiles are not
dated Muharram or other important Shii months, though
further investigation in to this question may repay some
interesting answers.

Lastly, an interesting and amusing
story is provided by the inscription on a unique tile in the
museum in Sèvres: it is circular with a raised border which does
not go completely around the circumference of the tile. It is a
foundation plaque with a long text explaining the curious
circumstances surrounding the foundation of the shrine of Imam
Ali in Kashan. At dawn on Thursday 10 February 1312 (1 Shawwal
711), Sayyid Fakhr al-Din Hasan Tabari dreamt that he was in a
garden just outside one of Kashans gateways, and saw there
a large group of people standing around a tent; outside were
tethered a horse and camel. A beautiful young man dressed in Arab
clothes invited him into the tent, and there inside was sitting
an awe-inspiring warrior whose "bravery and majesty made the
earth to move and the light from whose blessed face reached the
sky". This was Imam Ali, the Prophets son-in-law, and
he indicated that he was going to India to convert the heathen.
He wished for a magnificent shrine to be built as a place of
pilgrimage for those who could not travel all the way to India.
When Sayyid Fakhr al-Din awoke, he went to the garden, and
discovered the footprints of the horse and camel where the tent
had been in the dream. The Imam appeared to others and eventually
instructed Haidar Faris to construct the monument: this he did,
and the foundation tile was made in the shape of a horse-shoe to
represent the size of the hoof-print of the Imams horse.